got my first dose of what an emergency meant here in the US. jolted out of bed at 7:30AM on a saturday morning thanks to a fire alarm. not a very pleasing wake up call let me tell you!
a fire alarm with the sorest of throats! first i cursed myself for having forgotten to not keep an alarm only to realise it never rang that way. i had even yanked the power cord out, totally futile. it hadnt even blurted as much as a hiccup. i had clearly chosen the wrong opponent.
checked for all probable sources of smoke/fire in my room and having acquitted myself of the deed went onto the next course of action - evacuating myself. these caution signs that they flood the place with sure come handy! the messages get thrown at you in such regular intervals, within a day you would have it by rote! and when the real emergency presents itself, you can steer yourself to safety with your eyes closed. i can bet no one reads those signs at such times!
step 3 in life-saving activity was to get out of the room and out of the hotel itself. what if it was a really bad fire!? what if the whole place came crashing down. the american disease called 'extreme paranoia' hit me too. wanted to grab by baggage and scoot but ended up picking just the room key and my passport. i have been making up to my iPod for a while now. it is rather disappointed at me.
when you have an alarm blaring this loud, there is only one thing you can do - just get the hell out of that place. thats what i've been trying to tell my iPod. oh, my colleague did show me the other way - blissfully sleep through it as if nothing ever happened!
must've taken about a couple of minutes for the fire department to turn up, but was surprised no cops/ambulance tagged along. i must stop watching these action movies!
anyway, in the end it seemed like much ado about nothing. no smoke no fire no emergency. was it a hoax? or a prank? if it were a prank... felt really bad for the old man literaly limping his way around (but that babe in night dress looked so enticing! he he hee... sigh! thank god for small mercies!) ;-)
Hey Bertie :)
ReplyDeleteif i were your iPod, you'd be in trouble ;))
mebbe i can xplain the fire-alarm-for-no-reason situation... at one of our carol-signing rounds, our last stop was at 2am, in this huge apartment complex... after singing ourselves hoarse, we reached the elevators, and in the dark, aftr a lot of contemplation, pressed the fire alrm button instead of the elevator one :P and that damn thing was loud!!! we watched the lights come on, one-by-one, in apartments, block after block :) 've never run down 7 floors of stairs so fast ever!! hehehe and havent laughed as hard in a while too ;))
Cheers :)
LMAO :))
ReplyDeletereminds me of another incident while i was here last time. left office late one evening and didnt read the caution sign.... opened a time locked door and 5 mins later everybody was jumping out of their pants! damn burglar alarm was a nightmare! :p (janitor outside tells me "that was 'cos of you ma man! you set that thing on! nobody aint openin' that doar afta fa o clock!")
escaped with apologies to the security guard on duty ;))